Materials from the Americas
Eight very different kids, from eight different continents, all go about their day and experience the same moments of happiness: greeting the sun in the morning, swinging on a swing, flying a kite, being tucked in by Mommy at bedtime.
A novel of danger, warmth, and dark humor–about a brain-damaged young boy and the friend who knows a terrible secret. Watching Jimmy is an impossible-to-put-down novel full of danger, warmth and dark humor. With shocking candor, young Carolyn relates the truth about what really happened to her best friend, Jimmy, when his Uncle Ted chose the perfect time to teach him a lesson he’d never forget. The truth is, Jimmy didn’t fall from a swing like Uncle Ted claims–Carolyn knows, because she saw everything. According to her, “Uncle Ted just didn’t count on me, Carolyn, [being] perched in a tree where the park and the parking lot meet.” With the dreadful secret locked away, Carolyn walks an emotional tightrope. No matter what else is happening in this post-war era, she must keep an eye on poor, brain-damaged Jimmy: making sure he behaves, keeping him clean and keeping him safe–especially from Uncle Ted. But when Uncle Ted threatens his beleaguered family with even more abuse and the loss of their home, Carolyn must find the courage to match wits with him and to speak out, using the truth as her only weapon. But perhaps her biggest challenge will lie in finding a way to get Jimmy the expensive operation he needs to relieve the pressure on his brain, because: “As I told you, our Jimmy is not a mental defective like people say. Our Jimmy is in there. He’s in there. This I know.” Set in 1958, Watching Jimmy is a brilliant portrait of a time past, a family of strong women, and a resourceful young girl who exudes character, resilience, and, most of all, love.
A collection of stories highlights the similar problems faced by women of all ages, including the pensive, eighteen-year-old Ginny; seventeen-year-old Loretta, who is alone; and fifty-five-year-old Allison, who cannot help crying all the time.
Fourteen-year-old Emi-Lou Kaya feels like a nobody in her Hawaiian town. Abandoned by her mother at age three, Emi-Lou hasn’t a clue as to who her father might be, and on top of all this, she is overweight. Her only salvation is the strength of the hard-as-nails but loving grandmother who raised her, and the feisty spirit of her best friend Yvonne. It is Yvonne who renames the dynamic duo Von and Louie, and who puts Emi-Lou on a strict weight-loss regimen. But Emi-Lou starts to worry about losing her touchstone when Von begins spending a little too much time with Babes, an older girl from the softball team. Rumors abound that her soul sister is a “butchie,” and when Emi-Lou suspects it’s true, she becomes desperate to get Von back to “normal” and back to her role as best friend.
Riley and his family fly north to Churchill, Canada, wo watch polar bear hunt deals from the ice of Hudson Bay. There’s just one problem: no ice! For Polar Bears, no ice means no seals, and without food, the bears can quickly become hungry, weak and dangerous! It’s a race against time as everyone searches for clues to this puzzling climate mystery. Will the ice freeze in time–or at all? And will the polar bears finally get to eat again? The answer is up to you!
Teased in school for being pink, Patrick the penguin leaves the South Pole to live with the flamingos in Africa.
Charles Endicott discovers many things about himself and his past as he follows a homeless girl through the streets of his hometown on a warm summer day.
Jilly Coppercorn used to be a victim of abuse and drug addiction, but not is well on her way to being normal as an art school student when she runs into Donna Birch, her only friend from her past. This urban fantasy sets in Newford in 1972. Donna takes Jilly into a beautiful, mysterious city full of wonderful opportunities. It’s almost a paradise until Jilly realizes that the inhabitants are actually dead, souls whose lives were unfulfilled.
Shortlisted for Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book of the Year Award 2007 Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award nominee 2007 Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice Willow Awards nominee Canadian Children’s Book Centre Our Choice Starred Selection White Pine nominee, 2007 McNally Robinson announced that Wild Orchid was one of the top five best selling books in Saskatechewan in 2006. Taylor Jane Simon is 18 years old and spending the summer with her mother in Prince Albert National Park. The holiday has been planned so Taylor’s mother can spend time with her latest boyfriend, Danny, and work in the pizza restaurant near the park that Danny runs. Taylor would just as soon stay at home in Saskatoon, but because she suffers from an autistic condition called Asperger’s Syndrome, she can’t stay on her own. Taylor’s mother encourages her daughter to explore the park’s possibilities on her own. For Taylor, whose life experience has been seriously limited, this means facing the test of meeting new people who work in the park’s nature center – and facing it alone. Summer also holds out the possibility of finding her own boyfriend, though Taylor isn’t quite sure what that may involve. What she discovers will change her life forever. Written as an epistolary novel, Wild Orchid is frank but optimistic, literal yet innocent. A courageous wit attends Taylor’s gradual emergence as her own person, and the reader will find the exploration of Taylor’s mind a revealing and heartwarming encounter.
Justin Case is convinced fate has in for him. And he’s right. After finding his younger brother teetering on the edge of his balcony, 15-year-old David Case realizes the fragility of life and senses impending doom. Without looking back, he changes his name to Justin and assumes a new identity, new clothing and new friends, and dares to fall in love with the seductive Agnes Day. With his imaginary dog Boy in tow, Justin struggles to fit into his new role and above all, to survive in a world where tragedy is around every corner. He’s got to be prepared, just in case.